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National 🏴☠️ Rum ☠️ Day 🦜 2023
It’s National Rum Day for those of you who imbibe. It’s not my thing, but you do you.
Booky 📚 Booty
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island. ~Walt Disney
Don’t get me started on Disney. Talk about trying desperately to destroy some of the most beloved and financially valuable IP in all of human history. What a 💩 show…
Let’s just move away from that and focus on what old Walt had to say on one of my favorite things: books.
Walt made his fortune upcycling public domain fairy tales. Snow White doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a public domain story.
What does belong to Disney is Walt’s interpretation of it. The Brothers Grimm gave us Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but Walt gave his own names to the individual dwarves. He sourced the songwriter who put together Someday My Prince Will Come. Disney’s interpretation of and expansion on the classic fairy tale is their own IP and protected under copyright and trademark.
You can make your own version. If your dwarves are named Tom, Dick, Harry, Manny, Moe, Jack and Fred, you can go out and make your own Snow White movie right now. You can’t put her in the blue and yellow dress. You can’t have her sing the iconic song about her prince coming. Hi Ho, Hi Ho is completely off the table, but you can write your own songs.
Ever heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Jane Austin’s classic work of literature is in the Public Domain. Somebody took advantage of that. You can do that.
If you don’t have any original ideas of your own, you would fit right in with the Hollywood crowd.
Still ranting. Let’s move on. I love books. I like buying them. I like perusing them. I like reading them. I like writing them. Books are awesome.
I’ve been a bit too busy to read recently, but I’ve got a stack that I need to get to, eventually. Hopefully, I’ll get to that before the next library book sale or the to-read stack will get even higher.
Why Is The Rum Gone?
Captain Jack Sparrow – “Why’s the rum gone?”
I don’t drink. I haven’t done so since my bachelor party. That led to the hangover to end all hangovers. If you want to cure yourself of any need to drink anything even slightly alcoholic, do I what I did at my bachelor party.
Just the same, that’s a classic Captain Jack scene. “Why’s the rum gone?” 🤣 Back when Disney actually cared about entertaining people, you got stuff like that.
Was it a kind of rehash? Sure. The Pirates of the Caribbean was a classic ride at Disneyland and Disney World. They took that notion from the ride and wrote a story around it. It was a fun story. It was child-friendly. It was an instant classic.
Why can’t they do that now? Maybe they’re hitting the rum…
Thought Crystalized
Writing is thought crystalized on a piece of paper, which can then be reviewed. ~Tim Ferriss
As to the planning I mentioned on Saturday, kind of.
I have been spending some cycles, when available, to work on structuring my series and figure out the character arcs and subplots.
It’s whatever.
I’m still plagued by the weight of what I can’t get done at work. There is so much to do, even with my new colleague on board. I have so freaking much on my plate it’s not even funny.
What it is, is distracting.
Logically, I should be able to work a day’s work and set it down so I can do me stuff in the evening.
But no, it clings to me like Marley’s chains. There’s just so freaking much.
I did, however, get August’s Christmas post and pin images done, so that’s something in the done basket for 2023.
Having done so, I was inspired to try to generate a monthlies calendar for 2024. Nope, let’s just put a pin in that until I get some more immediate issues resolved.
Feeling so overwhelmed and scattered, it kills creativity. I’ve been researching productivity tools instead.
I need to get organized so I can chomp through my workload and make the No Monday Policy exactly what I need it to be.
But even that is in the future. I need to deal with now, well, now. That’s a huge fucking stack of stuff to do at work, a huge fucking stack of catch-up with my marital relationship and a couple of writing projects.
That’s not cool. It’s too much. There’s too much to do in any given day and it’s sucking my brain dry.
So, I get to double down and try to tear through my copious stack of stuff that needs doing. The only way out is through.
That’s the scoop today. Another day closer to 🍂Autumn🍂. See you on Saturday.